CptLoRes

Ehh... Him being killed was as he said so himself, just the drop that made the bucket overflow. Did you all just skip reading most of the post where he details all the problems and why he is leaving? Fact is that 0.23 made many players leave, and everything points to Demeter having the same effect. And no amount of putting blame on players and saying 'git gud' is going to save this game.

The longer you try and see into the future the more certain UBI becomes. But... Global UBI would also requires a colossal mental and economical shift, since profit driven production would no longer be sustainable.

Doing such a check would be ridiculously simple, since it does not require exact intersection calculations. All you need is the center coordinates and a rough radius (for size approximation) for each element, and then you do a quick check to see if any of the element center coordinates are to close to each other.

But that requires a master plan and a final goal for the game. Something I strongly suspect NQ does not have at all. So what we have instead is NQ putting out fires and trying stuff to see what sticks. Which when combined with bad communication makes it disastrous.

And considering DU is based on Newtonian physics and there is virtually no friction in space, that makes no sense. The only difference between a small and large ships in space is mass, which dictate how much inertia a ship has. Meaning as long as you are willing to expend the extra energy and time to accelerate the mass, there should be no speed difference between small and large. If they are doing this, they might as well throw in the towel and go full Star Wars with airplane flight behavior in space.

What makes this so frustrating is that I actually don't understand what NQ is trying to achieve with this patch. Like, at all. There isn't any exploit problems with normal building causing slight element intersections, and the 100% stacking bug has already been patched. And the obvious solution to remedy the fallout from the previous exploit, is a one time event where they scan the servers to find and disable all constructs that contains actual 100% stacking exploits. So what exactly are they trying to achieve with this? And if for some reason NQ does not want any element intersection no matter how small. Would it then not be prudent to fix the build system that is causing these intersections, before they go all ham and starts disabling constructs left and right? You can't give someone a speeding ticket first, and then lower the speed limit afterwards. And having something like this appear on the live servers at all, is a symptomatic problem that highlights a big part of why this game is struggling.

Working around bad game design using external solutions, does not improve the game or make more people want to play.

You might be able to deal with this and move on, but many players will instead literally move on to another game because of issues like this. So it makes sense that NQ at least should make an effort to minimize this from happening, and this latest example is anything but that.

How much intersection should be allowed is exactly whatever we are able to do in build mode without using exploits. My guess is that the limit should be something like 5% or so. And having a slight intersection caused by bad hitbox detection is not stacking, not even close. Stacking is using two players in combination to exploit a now fixed bug that would let you place multiple elements at the same position with 100% overlap. So NQ did not even have to implement the current live check in the clients. All they had to do was to run a one time check on the servers and disable any construct with confirmed stacking exploits. Which makes the current detection solution just another example of NQ throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Which sadly is becoming a thing..

As a nerd and software programmer I think they are cool. But there is a problem with how the world is changing in a way that does not scale. By that I mean that production in always increasing, creating more and more products for consumption. But at the same time demand for manual labor is decreasing since most factories are automated to increase efficiency. Same for more traditional jobs like expedition etc. The small "mom and dad" shops are becomes less and less relevant and taken over by the large corporations and internet sales. And those large chains are constantly trying to automate away as much manual labor as possible to save money. I.e. less jobs in general in that sector also. And in the next 10 years time or so when we get actual proper autopilots for driving, the need for taxi and truck drivers will also largely go away. This is already starting to happen right now for cargo transport, and other large ships that travel predetermined routes at sea. Next up will be airplane pilots. And all this automation will only require a small but highly skilled workforce to be maintained, since that is kinda the whole point of automation. The last to go (if ever) will be specific manual labor like carpenters (but we are already seeing 3D printed houses being demonstrated), hairdressers, plumbers, electricians etc. And someone has to build the large factories in the first place. But that is only a small workforce compared to what will be made obsolete by the factory when it is complete. And eventually we will get good enough automation and robotics so that factories can build themself, but that will be in the not so near future. So liking robots or not, everything points to that there will be less jobs in the future. And the jobs that remain, will require more specialized skill-sets. So pretty much the only type of work that I can guarantee will be in demand for a long time to come, is the devs needed to create all this automation. And that is what I do for a living. But even that is only one or two AI revolutions away from being made obsolete (a 20+ years time-frame would be my guess).

That is.. bullshit. It took me less then 5 minutes yesterday to cause a stack warning, using completely legal and normal building techniques. And as a builder it should take you about the same time to check just how bad the current hitbox and intersection check system actually is. It is literally NQ's job to try and make a robust game that players can enjoy with as little frustration as possible. And forcing players to learn lots of unwritten rules just to play the game is not sustainable in any shape or form.

A interface where you could check the status of all MU's without having to travel would also be nice, and essential in the long run. Edit: Fixed typo

And that ladies and gentlemen, is why this is feature is now how many years late? NQ is to busy with nerfing stuff that actually works and adding low hanging fruit like a new VFX system that nobody asked for or needed, to be bothered with essential features that would require some work to complete.

NQ doesn't have to solve this like right now this moment. But what they have to do, is confirm if this is intended behavior or not as quickly as possible. And if not, ensure us that it will be fixed before it goes live so that we can continue without all the angst.

Wiping will solve nothing. It will not magically improve the game in any way, and there will be even less content since all user made stuff will now also be gone.

This is just gold, and highlight just how little QA that goes into this stuff.

Yeah.. It's bad.. I just did some tests and it is very simple to get false triggers just by normal placement of elements in certain ways that cause slight intersection of elements. And in many cases the alternative to avoid the trigger is elements that looks like they are floating in air and not touching anything. And it's not even consistent, I have no problem getting the solution to accept the exact same placement without an error just by tweaking the order of operation.

If this change goes through as is, it will also set a precedent where NQ are punishing legal builders for the actions of exploiters. And I can almost guarantee that will not sit well with many players..

That is greatly simplifying the problem. Many constructs, especially the fancy ones for sale do not provide easy access to elements or even allow you to move them in any meaningful way, since every element has been carefully placed to maximize (legally) the build and increase sales value. So I will reiterate my point. If NQ starts breaking legal builds, then it is 100% their obligation to fix it.

And again we have already multiple times given NQ a lot of feedback on possible solutions for this. My personal favorite is to have a huge circular asteroid belt that is slowly rotating and running trough the entire DU universe, spawning in when asteroids entering the universe at one end and de-spawining when leave again at the other end. And this asteroid ring belt would then be positioned and scaled such that asteroids first appear in PvP space before eventually passing thought safe zones as the ring rotates. Meaning that higher tier materials would be made available first in the PvP space, and whatever is left over would eventually be made available in safe zones as the asteroids glide through it. Edit: @Zarcata Great minds think alike it would seem..

That just does not make any sense, and I have two intimidate thoughts from reading that response. 1. It sounds a lot like a self profiling proficy, where most people are playing weekends because that is when they are given a reason to do so. 2. Regardless of if most people are playing during weekends, should not NQ strive to provide content all the time to incentivize player interaction during week days also?

Exactly. If the current shipwrecks where successful and worth the time, then looking for them would be a thing more players would do. But it is not, at that is really all the feedback NQ should need.

I place elements as close as the build system will legally allow me to do for obvious reasons. And if NQ suddenly starts to punishing me for doing that, then that is their problem to fix and not mine.

I am at the age where I followed the 3D shooter game revolution starting with Wolfenstein then Doom, Heretic and so on culminated in the story and puzzle driven game Half-Life 1 which except from improved graphics, pretty much still represents the state of all modern FPS games. Had a run with the more competitive Counter-Strike but quickly tired of the genre. Before that I did the obligatory runs of strategy games like Populus, Simcity etc. And of course the point and click genre like Monkey island, Simon the Sourcerer, Day on the tentacle, Beneath a steel sky and so on. Other big games for me where Home World, Black and White and of course Second Life. The last couple of years I have enjoyed the VR revolution with sim racing and lots of great VR games and experiences, including Half Life Alex to complete the circle.

Not sure, but I seem to remember that you can click the element in the list to highlight it in build mode.